"we don't seem to quite be
able to take in the growing realisation that we actually are being
governed by idiots and fools, or that this actually has real-world
consequences.

We finish the week with a Prime Minister who has
lost his bundle and is making policy and political calls that go beyond
reckless in an increasingly panicked and desperate attempt to save
himself; a government that has not just utterly lost its way but its
authority; and important policy debates left either as smouldering
wrecks or unprosecuted.

"Idiot" is the word
that comes most often in Labor's focus groups when voters are asked
about the Prime Minister. And lest you're thinking this is just what
Labor would spin isn't it, we had a confirmation this week from focus
group polling conducted for Fairfax by one of Australia's most respected
focus group pollsters, Visibility's Tony Mitchelmore, with the small
caveat being that these voters didn't describe Tony Abbott as an idiot
but a fool.

Tony Abbott has already lost Western Sydney. And after Rupert Murdoch's Daily Telegraph and right wing radio ranters worked so hard in 2013 to help win the area for him:

These perceptions are not just a
problem for Tony Abbott and his future, but for the broader Coalition,
given that the government's conduct in the last couple of weeks can only
leave voters with the idea that the idiocy stretches well beyond the
Prime Minister's office.